


and if I asked you

by acastle



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 19:17:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16771234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acastle/pseuds/acastle
Summary: "Hyung, do you love me?" he asks.Minseok is quiet. Then, he asks, "In what way are you asking?"(Chanyeol wants, needs a bit of reassurance. Minseok always seems to oblige.)





	and if I asked you

**Author's Note:**

> hbd chanyeolie!
> 
> tried a different style of writing for this one, t r i e d lol, just a short fic, a little more dramatic than it needs to be.
> 
> don't send to anyone mentioned.

“Hyung, do you love me?” Chanyeol asks Minseok playfully, linking their hands together and swinging them around as they sway from side to side in their seats along to the beat of Baekhyun’s song, a soft tune with a bright tone with sweet words. 

Minseok indulges him, as he always does. Right in the middle of this song, in the middle of this audience, where there must be cameras all over pointed right at them, in the middle of this awards show that doesn’t really mean anything in the long run, maybe a beautiful memory for the future to come back to, Minseok answers, “Yes, Yeol. Hyung loves you.”

Chanyeol grins, laughs and they laugh again together, their friend’s small hand making them more amused than they should be. They recreate it with too wide smiles and bright eyes, and Chanyeol likes the pinkness of Minseok’s cheeks, his endearing grin, the lightness of his soul when he’s with him. 

He’s always loved Minseok, in a different way. It starts feeling a little different, now, something he can’t quite identify. When Minseok smiles at him, plays along, and lets him hold his hand, though, he stops thinking about it too much. Just takes it in as it is. 

.

“Hyung, do you love me?” Chanyeol asks Minseok when they’re on a practice break, muscles feeling like liquid and palms a little sweaty with proximity and exertion and holding on to Minseok’s arm with every run. 

Minseok raises his eyebrows, pulling down his cap a little over his soft black waves, and he asks, “Why ask that now?”

“I’m your best dance partner, right?” he says, and Minseok blinks, before chuckling, wiping at his sweat. 

“The others might get jealous, Yeollie,” he says, and Chanyeol huffs, maybe too petulantly. 

“But that’s a yes, right?” he asks, persisting. 

Minseok looks at him, considering. “Which question are you asking for?”

“Both,” he answers. Minseok hums. 

“Okay.”

“So it's a yes, right?”

“Sure, it is,” Minseok replies, going off to grab a drink of water before they start up on practice again, and Chanyeol pouts to himself, not satisfied. Knowing that maybe now isn't the right time to play around, not with comeback season, not when they’re preparing so seriously. Knowing that they have a lot to do and maybe jokes are going to fall flat no matter who says it or when they say it. 

He just doesn’t expect Minseok’s nonchalant answer to sting as much as it does. A little devastation. 

.

“Hyung, do you love me?” Chanyeol asks Minseok, when it’s just the two of them in the car going home after a day of pre-recording for a music show, and it’s been nonstop, one thing after the other. 

They’re all a bit on edge, tired-excited in the way only comebacks can make them feel, so he expects the usual,  _ ‘Not now, Chanyeol,’  _ or  _ ‘What kind of question is that?’  _ or, more likely at times like this, the silence of sleep, an occasional snore.

Minseok doesn’t do any of that. Looks back towards where Chanyeol is seating in the backseat from his place in the passenger’s seat, and asks him patiently, “Why do you want to know?”

Chanyeol blinks, not expecting the question. Doesn’t know how to answer articulately, admits, “I. I just do. I like assurance. I’m sorry, if it’s bothering you.”

“It’s not,” Minseok tells him. Chanyeol believes him with a little caution, because even though Minseok had never been the type to lie or say things lightly, always thinking through his words carefully, people tend to assure him just to get him to keep quiet.

He should have known to not doubt Minseok, who reaches back, touches his hand gently. “Hyung loves you, Chanyeol. Really.”

It’s assuring, a little balm that keeps him calm and warms his soul, and he lets Minseok retreat his hand, knows he’s tired too and wants to sleep. 

For now, this is enough. 

.

“Hyung, do you love me?” he asks, after he’s cried too much in front of too many people, his heart hurting and chest swelling with pride and relief. He asks, as Minseok stays with him backstage, gently wiping at his face sodden with tears, and he holds on to his hands, trying to stay in the moment. Trying to keep Minseok here. “Do you love me?”

Minseok stays quiet for a little longer, thumbing across his cheeks, trying to get him to calm himself a little more.

“In what way are you asking?” he asks then, when they’re left alone and then suddenly, what was enough before, isn’t enough at all. 

“I think you know, hyung,” Chanyeol says, sniffing, trying to be braver than he feels.

Minseok cups his face in his hands. His eyes are so warm. “Next time. Ask me next time, when we’re not like this. When you’re sure. When you can use your words and ask for what you really want.”

“I want  _ you,”  _ he says, but Minseok shakes his head gently. His smile is just as tender, maybe a little sad. 

“Next time, Chanyeol. When your head is a little clearer.”

His head’s been clear for too long. Much longer than he realizes.

.

“Hyung, do you love me?” Chanyeol asks. It’s just them at the dormitory tonight,and Minseok had just gotten home after a long day of dance rehearsals and last minute recordings for the CBX comeback, and everyone else had gone out for dinner.

Minseok looks at him, over the simple rice and sausage meal Chanyeol had prepared for them. The silver hair looks good on him. He looks good in anything. 

“Your head clear now?” Minseok asks him. Chanyeol nods. “In what way?” he asks again, and he waits.

“Do you love me in the way it makes you want to kiss me?” he asks, tries not to rush through the words, tries not to trip over them. “In the way that you’ll let me hold your hand when I want to, and you’ll hold mine when you want to? In the way that you’ll let me write songs about you?”

Minseok doesn’t answer for a while, just looks at him, trying to understand. Chanyeol stays still, putting down his chopsticks. He doesn’t know if he’s really not hungry, or if he’s nervous. He doesn’t want to be told no. He hopes, hopes a lot.

“I do,” Minseok says. It’s the most beautiful tone. “Hyung loves you, Yeol. In all those ways, and more.”

Chanyeol’s heart sings, louder than it should, making him even braver than he already feels. 

“Can I do those things, then?” he asks.

Minseok tilts his head at him, His smile is very lovely. “It would make me very happy, if you do.”

And Chanyeol, he always wants to make his hyung happy, always. So he leans forward, over the table, and presses his lips onto his, kissing him.

They fit well together, so well. Mouths melting together and Minseok’s lips soft against his, and he licks in gently, tastes him for the first time. 

His heart is warm. The second taste is even sweeter, and Minseok hums against his lips, and he tastes kind, tastes like home and many things Chanyeol finds he wants more of. Many things he knows he can’t live without, knowing that he’s had him like this, he won’t be able to let this go.

.

“Hyung, do you love me?” Chanyeol asks, backstage, right after he and Minseok had walked off with hands linked together before the next stage. Asks right in front of the other members, and he doesn’t care when they stop what they’re doing, stare at them both. Junmyeon drops his water bottle.

“Stop shitting around, Chanyeol,” Jongdae says, but Chanyeol isn’t shitting around, his eyes stinging, hurt, that they would think that he is.

Minseok quiets them all wordlessly when he leans up, kissing his lips softly, and when he steps back down, Chanyeol feels like his ears are burning, but his heart is so, so,  _ so  _ warm, with so much affection and brightness.

“This. This is unexpected,” Junmyeon says, blinking rapidly, eyes on them.

“No, it’s not,” Kyungsoo and Baekhyun say, and then everyone is noisy again, back to the hecticity of dressing up and getting ready for the encore, and like this, it becomes part of the fabric of their group. Unexpected, but easy, and Minseok gives him a kind smile, one full of warmth, filling Chanyeol up and giving him a lot of hope for what might come along in the future.

.

“Hyung, do you love me?” he asks, everything quiet around them, Toben at his feet, Minseok sitting next to him, watching them play.

He fixes the cap on Chanyeol’s head, fixing his hair, touching his shoulder, feeling for himself the muscles Chanyeol had been working hard on. 

“More than you know,” Minseok’s eyes are so soft, his voice softer still. Chanyeol’s chest goes tight, too small for his heart, and Minseok holds his hand, the touch simple but so full. 

His hand is too big for Minseok’s, but Minseok cradles it close, links their fingers loosely together, tender, so gentle. 

He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve this, something like this. A minute, a second like this. 

.

“Hyung, oh,  _ oh,”  _ he moans, unable to string his words together as he’s fucked, gasping as Minseok drills his cock into his ass, and this is new. Really new, being with him this way. 

He likes it too much, he feels, spreading his legs wider, feeling his ass stretch around Minseok’s cock as he splits him open, fucks him, and they go hard, Minseok’s pace unfaltering as he pounds into Chanyeol. Fucks him hard, fast, such that they’re jostled up the bed, Chanyeol throwing one hand up against the headboard, to ground them, to stop his head from hitting it so much.

“H-Hyung, oh,  _ fuck, fuck me,”  _ he whines, arching into Minseok’s body, throwing his head back on the pillow, overwhelmed, feeling so full, Minseok’s cock dragging along his inner walls, their skin slapping together, entirely too much. He wants more.

“You’re so tight around me. Like you don’t want to let go of me,” Minseok says, voice low, breathy as he sets one hand on Chanyeol’s stomach, pushing down, feeling him as he fucks into his body, the other around his cock, starting to pull him off to the pace he fucks with him. 

Chanyeol whines, loudly, spurting a little at the tip, right over Minseok’s fingers, and it won’t take him long at all. His balls are so full, sensitive, his cock hard and just about gone, and Minseok is perfect for him in every way, knowing just how to touch him, how to fuck him, fill him up.

“Hyung, oh,  _ fuck, Minnie,”  _ he whimpers, ass so full as he’s fucked, and he takes it,  _ takes  _ it all, willingly, squeezing his ass, taking each thrust into his hole and still wanting more. “Hyung, do, do you love me,  _ oh shit-” _

“Fuck,  _ yes,” _ Minseok breathes, other hand moving down, down to where Chanyeol is stretched tight around his length, where he’s ramming in and out of his ass, touching the skin where he’s being split open, taking his cock. 

Chanyeol comes, ropes of white over their bodies, and it only makes Minseok go harder, pushing into him faster, giving him more of what he wants, his cock in his sensitive body making him moan, see stars, make his chest go so full.

.

_ “Hyung, fuck,”  _ he stares, can’t help but do anything but stare as Minseok lowers himself onto his cock, his hole lovely and pink, stretched around his girth, and Chanyeol stares at his ass as he sinks down and adjusts around him. His cock gets even harder inside him, he feels, and he reaches out to touch, palming Minseok’s ass, pert and perky under his hands, and Minseok hums, rolling his body a little grinding.

“You’re so big,” he breathes, looks over his shoulder to where Chanyeol is on his back, open-mouthed still and staring at where their bodies meet. “Like I’m being split in two.”

“Fuck, Minseok,” Chanyeol moans, overwhelmed when Minseok lifts himself up, watches his cock slip out of his hole, bit by bit, and he slams himself down, making their skin smack together, and Chanyeol watches, can’t stop, as Minseok fucks himself down, clenching around his cock, hole tight, body lithe and knowing exactly what it’s doing on top of him.

“Oh, that’s it,” Minseok says breathlessly when Chanyeol starts moving his hips and thrusting up into him, body jostled slightly, and they go at it, fucking, a little wilder than before, pace dirty and rough enough that Minseok leans down, sets his hands down on Chanyeol’s thighs, leaning his body down. Chanyeol takes advantage of the new angle, pushing his hips up and fucking into Minseok, making him gasp and spread his legs a little more, getting himself more open as Chanyeol’s hips slap against his ass as he drills into him, filling him up with cock.

They go at it for a long while, fucking, Minseok bouncing on his cock and rolling his hips, riding him, fucking himself, Chanyeol doing what he can to make him feel as good as he can. 

“H-Hyung,” he groans, overwhelmed again as he watches Minseok roll his ass and grind down on him, taking him so, so deep, and he holds his waist, and beckons him down to lay on top of him, helping him adjust, his chest sticky against Minseok’s back, hands moving to try to touch as much of him as he can.

Minseok reaches up his arms, reaches back to get at Chanyeol’s hair and scrunch his fingers up in his locks. He pulls as they continue to fuck, move together, and Chanyeol holds his hips, moving his body along on top of him, moving him on his cock, moaning with each pull on his hair, each push into Minseok’s ass.

“Hyung,” he breathes, right into Minseok’s ear, pushing in particularly hard, making him moan, his cock jump. “Hyung, do you love me?”

“I fucking love you,” he breathes, almost an immediate answer, turning his head, and Chanyeol latches on to his lips, pressing their mouths together. His tongue pushes into Minseok’s open mouth, and they lick and kiss as Chanyeol goes on fucking into him, keeping his ass stretched and split open. “Make me come, Yeol.”

It’s not a hardship to follow, as he wraps his arms around Minseok’s body, keeping him close as he fucks him harder, harder still, hammering into his body from below, and when Minseok comes, his moan melodious and loud but still of a tender, soft tone, Chanyeol follows, filling him up inside, so full of him. 

.

“Hyung, you  _ do  _ love me!” he says, laughing, right after they’d gotten off stage, after their lips had almost touched in front of a very full stadium, after he had shaken himself off comically and Minseok had laughed and the others had laughed too, shocked, caught off guard. 

Minseok just grins, “And what about it?”

Chanyeol throws himself on him, arms flung over his shoulders as he kisses him, the way the couldn’t in front of the crowd.

“Get dressed,” Sehun drawls, patting both their asses, and Chanyeol keeps on kissing Minseok, ignoring him promptly.

.

“You have to remember about him too,” someone says to him. One of their managers. 

Chanyeol looks up from his phone at the admonishing words, Jongin going a little still beside him. The van feels very stuffy and very cold all at the same time, all of a sudden.

“What, hyung?” he says, not understanding. “Are we, um. Are we too obvious?”

“Not just that,” he answers. It’s quiet. “It. It will end up tearing you apart. If you depend too much on him. On the reassurance. Remember, he’s in this too.”

“What do you mean?” he asks. He doesn’t get an answer, because they arrive. It scares him, makes him overthink. Makes him think that Minseok must not mean it, after all.

.

“Hyung, do you love me?”

“Yes, I do, Chanyeol.”

.

“Hyung, do you love me?”

“Yes, love.”

.

“Hyung, do I ask you too many times, if you love me?”

“You can ask me as many times as you want, Chanyeol. If that’s what you want. I’ll always say yes.”

.

He doesn’t even remember about what started it. He thinks it must have been the towel. Minseok keeps saying something about his laptop, his schoolwork for the PhD he doesn’t need. 

Doesn’t matter. It had spiralled out of control. They’re still shouting at each other, and then Minseok is saying something like, “Don’t you understand, I have so many things to think about, I’m still older than you, I have responsibilities-”

“Like I don’t have responsibilities, too!”

“I never said you didn’t, Chanyeol,” he says, frustration soft but present in his voice. “Please, understand. I’m  _ trying,  _ I’m doing my best.”

“Do better,” Chanyeol says, and his heart is hurting, chest tight in a way he doesn’t like, and his eyes stinging.

“I know,” Minseok says, agreeing, instead of getting even angrier, that Chanyeol had even insinuated that he wasn’t working too hard, already. Looking back, Chanyeol would be horrified that he’d even implied that Minseok was anything less than the most hardworking person he knows, but the moment keeps him tied too tightly, feeling too angry, swept away by his foolish anger. Minseok looks sad, then, deflated. “I’ll try harder, I’m sorry. Just, please, be patient with me.”

“You’re wasting my time!” he says, and he’ll hate himself too much over this, later on. Because Minseok, if anything, had been too patient with him, given him so much time. And here Chanyeol is, saying this thoughtlessly, adding even more carelessly, “Everything, this whole time. It’s been such a waste of time.”

Minseok looks shocked. Then, he starts to cry, hurt lining every part of his face, and then Chanyeol wants to snatch the words back, make them disappear, erase them, burn them. Anything, anything to not have them exist at all, and he stands, horrified at his own words, not recognizing himself. 

_ He  _ would never hurt Minseok like this, make him cry. But, here he is, doing everything he’d said he would never do. 

“Hyung, I, I’m sorry,” he tries, words choked up in his own throat, and he’s tearing up, eyes stinging, so sad that he’d made Minseok cry. “I, I didn’t mean it. You’re not a waste of time. We’re not, not a waste of time.”

Minseok doesn’t cry, mostly. He does the comforting, wipes away the tears when the rest of them do. But now, he’s crying, because Chanyeol had made him feel bad. Of little worth. 

He hates himself, so much.

He tries to hold him. Minseok pushes him away, and he leaves. Leaves the dorm, and he tries to follow, but Yixing stops him right before he goes out the door, with a gentle hand on his arm, a gentle look on his face.

“Give him some time,” he says quietly. “Be. Be patient with him.”

He knows it should be a little embarrassing that everyone had heard them fight, wherever they had been in the dormitory. Had heard him say those awful things to Minseok. Had made him feel bad for a fight he can’t even remember. 

He’ll be embarrassed later, after he punishes himself a little for making him cry. 

.

“You both had points,” Junmyeon tells him quietly, later on after dinner. Minseok had still yet to return, and 5 out 7 of the others had to restrain him from following him out the door to beg for forgiveness. 

“I was wrong,” Chanyeol says. His own plate is still full. He’s not hungry.

“You both were. And you were both right too,” Junmyeon says. He looks at him, gaze understanding, endlessly patient. “He still loves you. Don’t be scared.”

He’s very scared. He’s terrified. 

.

Chanyeol can’t sleep, staring at the wall, his chest battered and bruised. He can’t stop crying, because he’d ruined everything. Ruined such a beautiful thing, and he cries because he’d made such a beautiful person cry.

The door to his room is opened. Maybe Jongin, coming in from his shower. 

He quiets himself, tears still streaming down his face, but he tries to keep silent, curling into himself. A weight on the side of the bed, making it dip. Then, hands on his face, wiping away the wetness, patient, so patient. He knows those hands.

He cries even more as he turns, knowing who it is already, but not quite believing that he’d come back, knowing he doesn’t deserve him, but he’s here. He’s here.

Minseok looks at him, tired, face still puffy from all the crying he must have done, pink from the cold outside, but his expression tender, gentle as he holds Chanyeol, much more than he deserves.

“H-Hyung, I, I’m,” he tries, but he can’t get through the words, more tears leaking out his eyes, and he sobs, and Minseok holds him, keeps close. 

He’s scared. Scared he’s ruined too much.

“Hyung, do. Do you, are you,” he can’t finish, the tears and wracking sobs not letting him,  _ ‘Do you love me? Did I ruin this? Did I ruin us?’ _

Minseok must understand, still. He leans down, kissing his temple, so gentle, so soft. An answer, in and of itself. 

Chanyeol curls around him, can’t help but want the proximity, and Minseok gives it to him, holds him close and is never selfish with him. Gives him everything he can, everything he wants. 

Chanyeol burrows into his warmth, ignoring his height, his broadness, his size. Feeling much smaller than he is, and he feels so exposed, like a nerve, vulnerable and in pain and Minseok holds him, lays next to him, coat still on and exhaustion weighing down on his muscles.

_ ‘I’m sorry I made you cry, hyung,’  _ he wants to say.  _ ‘I never want to hurt you. I promise.’ _

“Sleep, Yeollie,” Minseok says, speaking for the first time that night. His words are soft, his hands brushing his matted hair away from his face. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”   
He still feels awful. “Hyung. I’m sorry.”

Minseok doesn’t say anything for a while. Then, “Let’s talk in the morning. It will be better, in the morning.”

It will only really be better, if it’s for both of them.

.

It’s his birthday.

Things have been better, but he hasn’t asked him, for a while. Preparing, recording, rehearsing and practicing when they’re not travelling and performing, and it was tiring and satisfying in the way only a comeback can make him feel. 

He hasn’t asked in a while, too scared of what the answer might be. But it’s after midnight, and everyone is greeting him in the chat, and Minseok had typed in that endearing way only he can get away with, so he asks. Tries to, at least.

“Hyung,” he tries, when they’re alone in the practice room and Minseok is packing, ready to go home after they had stayed behind, Minseok helping him, patient as they practiced the new choreography.

So patient, moving with him, even though he’d gotten the steps down really the moment they were taught, even though it had taken Chanyeol too long to even keep himself in step. 

They’ve been alright. Really good, do. He doesn’t understand why asking feels  _ so important.  _ That he’s ready to break, that somehow, it feels like things have changed. 

“Hyung,” he tries again, but. He can’t finish the words, can’t string them together. Can’t find himself to speak, suddenly not knowing how, suddenly feeling  _ so  _ much. 

He doesn’t need to finish the question. Minseok stands, and reaches out, holding his hand in his. His hands are soft, small, and his eyes are beautiful, kind. His smile is gentle. 

“I love you, Chanyeol,” he says simply, like it’s the first time he’s saying it. 

It certainly feels like he’s hearing it the first time. Chanyeol thinks it might be, the first time Minseok is saying it as forwardly as this. 

His eyes sting, and he’s crying before he realizes, and Minseok smiles patiently. He’s beautiful.

_ Thank you, hyung,  _ he wants to say. He likes to think Minseok receives the message through his lips when they kiss, quiet in the soft lit room, the reflection of their embrace surrounding them on every wall. It feels right.

.

“Hyung?”

“I love you, Chanyeol. Nothing’s changed.”

.

“Hyung, do. Do you still love me?”

“All of you.”

.

“Hyung? I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For always needing reassurance. For always asking even though I know the answer.”

“Never apologize for that. Ask me as many times as you want, if it makes you happy. It just gives me another excuse to say it. I love you. I love you.”

.

It catches him off guard. 

They’re at Minseok’s parents’ place, playing with Tan, and Minseok is stroking his cat’s back, looking like a dream. Like his dream, the kind Chanyeol doesn’t want to wake up from.

“Chanyeol. Do  _ you  _ love me?”

Minseok’s voice is quiet. He won’t look at Chanyeol, his hand pausing behind Tan’s ears, and his face. He looks sad.

Chanyeol chokes on a breath. Climbs over his lap, holds his face in his hands.

He hadn't realized, before, until now. Didn’t know what they’d meant before when they’d warned him,  _ ‘he’s in this too,’  _ didn’t know that it would mean  _ this.  _

Chanyeol needs reassurance, almost always. He’d forgotten that Minseok, he’d need the reassurance too.

“Hyung. I love you,” he says, easy as breathing. He can’t believe he’s never said it like this before, when it makes his heart soar, and it makes Minseok look so  _ happy,  _ the softest, most tender expression on his face, teary but sincerely, truly happy. “I love you. I love you, I  _ love you. I love you.” _

He doesn’t stop saying it. Minseok deserves it, and more.

.

“Hyung, do you love me?”

A soft pause. Then, he holds out the ring, made from the old guitar strings he’d found, loved, now with a new purpose. Minseok’s eyes shine.

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/markxiuyeols)
> 
> [tumblr](http://castlenarry.tumblr.com/)


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